Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a campaign for Gap that features profiles of other design bloggers. The interviews are an extension of Gap’s Born To… Campaign, which is about pursuing your passion. As you may have noticed, I’m into that. You can find out more about the campaign on the Facebook page here. For completists, the whole set of interviews is over here.

This week’s interview is with Jean Aw, designer and founder of NOTCOT, a network of collaborative design sites with an emphasis on smart ideas. She has a master’s in User Experience Design, so NOTCOT doubles as Jean’s design consultancy.

Jean and I met about a year ago at the CM Summit in San Francisco. As you can see from her self-styled photo above, she’s a little camera shy, but you may recognize her from a recent appearance in Lucky Magazine.

Jean grew up in Los Angeles, where she’s currently based, and her attraction to variety helped her shape a career that keeps her life flexible.

“The best thing about my life right now is that no day is typical,” she says. “Perhaps thats the reason I’ve been able to do this so long! I could be roadtripping for hours, flying off somewhere, tethered to my wifi, meeting people I’ve admired over drinks, shopping, looking silly photographing products on my pool table, bouncing between galleries… you get the idea.”

Jean says her fascination with design may be genetic. “I think it has just always been a part of my life,” she says. “Maybe I can blame my mom for impressing her good taste on me at such a young age.”

Favorite Artists and Designers

Over the next few weeks, I’m doing a campaign for Gap that features profiles of other design bloggers. The interviews are an extension of Gap’s Born To… Campaign, which is about pursuing your passion. As you may have noticed, I’m into that. Find out more about the campaign on the Facebook page here. For completists, the whole set of interviews is over here.

I personally think the shot would have been better in tighty whities, but Jeremy has a professional image to maintain, and I guess that means pants. Fair enough.

Trendhunter is a social network for trend spotting and innovation, which means Jeremy is the kind of guy MTV calls when they want to know what’s hip with the kids these days. He grew up in Rural Alberta racing dirt bikes, and now heads up a team of editorial interns and programmers at the Trendhunting office in downtown Toronto.

“Sometimes I’m doing graphic design, other times I’m programming, and other times I’m off in another city doing a speaking gig,” Jeremy says. “I deliver keynote speeches about five to ten times a month, so I’m typically traveling somewhere new.”

The site’s goal is to outpace mainstream media, the idea being that by the time these trends reach the printed page, they’re not cool anymore. But do his eyes ever glaze over at all the hipness? Does everything start to look the same after a while?

“By definition, we’re looking for new things,” Jeremy says. “So they don’t look the same. However, after a week of looking at TrendHunter, everything in a traditional magazine does seem boring and outdated.”

After years of trend immersion, Jeremy has developed a pretty good eye for what will hit. Common themes are creativity, elements of shock or suprise, and of course, the naughty factor. “I’m more happy to see when I am wrong [about a trend],” he says. “We’re looking for all of the little sparks that could capture viral attention, and to be surprised is actually rewarding.”

Over the next four weeks, I’m doing a campaign for Gap that features profiles of other design bloggers. The interviews are an extension of Gap’s Born To… Campaign, which is about pursuing your passion. As you may have noticed, I’m into that. Find out more about the campaign on the Facebook page here. For completists, the whole set of interviews will live over here.

I’m kicking off the Born To… Series with Jill Fehrenbacher, founder of Inhabitat and a LEED-AP green designer. Her passion is building a better future, as indicated by her trusty hammer and power drill:

Jill and I have friends in common, so we chatted about how one maintains a perfect bob (Japanese straight perm, genetics), and the business of blogging. Later I found out that Jill grew up here in California, though she’s currently based in New York. Over the years, she’s also made homes in Bali and Kathmandu.

Dig a little deeper, and it turns out that Jill is a traveling, karate-practicing, mini-mogul, vegan designer and parent who still makes time for Japanese straight perms. New York moves at a different pace than the rest of the world, my friends.

In 2005, Jill was enjoying her life as a designer and consultant and decided to start Inhabitat as a way to engage with the design community and draw more attention to environmentally conscious design. At the time, mainstream media was mostly mum on the subject of green design, and Jill wanted to fill that silence. As interest in greener design has grown — dramatically — so has Inhabitat’s online presence and staff. Today, Jill relies on a team of writers to help her maintain five sites:

Re-burbia A suburban design competition, which recently announced finalists.

I know you’ll be interested to hear that there’s also a fashion site in the works. Keep an eye out for Sustainastyle in the coming months.

Jill’s interest in design started early. A neighbor gave her an easel when she was three years old, and she’d spend hours drawing. “I studied art in high school and college, and that eventually lead me to the world of design, when I realized how much more impactful and relevant applied design was than the world of fine art (sorry fine art people, but it’s true).”

In the beginning, Jill juggled her design and consulting work while maintaining Inhabitat. Soon, the site that was supposed to support Jill’s career became a career in itself. A few years later, she started publishing full time, and replaced her alarm clock with a looming toddler named Petey. She takes him along for a quick jog in the mornings before settling into her role as a publisher.

“I typically stand in my kitchen or office all day in front of my laptop — writing blog posts, fielding inquiries from people, with an occasional pop out to the cafe for a meeting with a designer or advertiser.”

In the evenings, Jill studies karate, and returns home for dinner with her family, all of whom are vegan, including little Petey. Jill has been a vegetarian since high school, but over the last few years her husband’s eating habits have nudged her toward a vegan diet, the occasional chocolate chip cookie aside.

“He gradually converted me off dairy and eggs,” Jill says. “It isn’t tough to maintain at all — especially in NYC where there are tons of vegan restaurants and healthy food shops.”

There’s more blogging to do after Petey goes to bed. “Every day features a lot of time in front of the laptop, but every day is unique,” she says.

She hopes the work she’s doing now will make an easier life for her kids, “[I hope] we’ll be able to solve climate change, and that my children and grandchildren will inherit a decent, peaceful, and not-too-hot future.”

“Star industrial designer Philippe Starck isn’t exactly known for his humanitarian, earth-friendly designs, (he’s better known for decorative plastic chairs and fancy lemon juicers). He’s even said, ‘Everything I designed was unnecessary… and I am ashamed of this fact.’

Now, [he] has turned his eye towards renewable energy and other ‘green’ pursuits, and this gives me a lot of hope for the future, because I believe that he’ll influence a lot of consumers and designers to move in the right direction.”